


Incomplete

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: F/M, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-27
Updated: 2011-04-27
Packaged: 2017-10-18 17:45:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It's election night and Roy has prepared a very touching speech for his subordinates, he really has.</i> Written November 2010.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Incomplete

He is glad they are doing this in Spring. It's late but there's still light outside: orange, fading light but light nonetheless. The street lamps lit up just now as well. He is glad that he can look out of his window and see that kind of late Spring sky tonight. Roy tries hard not to think about metaphors for renewal and possibilities and that sort of thing. He wants to be aloof about the whole business. He wants to be distracted.

There's a knock on the door, low, (coincidence, synchrony, or something Roy could – and will – romanticize?) and Hawkeye comes in without waiting for an answer.

`Everything is already set for tonight,´ she informs him. `We've wired the telegraph in the cafeteria, so that everyone could listen to the results together. It would have been easier if you've just gone up to Central but well.´

`No. I had to be here. Whether we win or lose this is something we have constructed here. It's only fair.´

Hawkeye knows this, knew this, has heard the argument a dozen times. What's more, Roy knows she knows. A perpetual game. She is being argumentative for the sake of letting Roy listen to his own voice. For the joy of letting him repeat himself. They've danced this dance, they know this song. Hawkeye agrees. He has to be here. And she does, too.

She walks up to his desk. Roy brushes his thumb across her wrist as a proper “ _hello_ ”.

`Did you tell everyone to come here before... before the thing?´

`Yes. You still have a couple of minutes, though.´

`I know.´

He looks pensive. He realizes he looks pensive. And yet his mind goes blank, blacking out the sheer MAGNITUDE of tonight. Hawkeye picks that. For a moment Roy is not looking at her but he can feel her stare on him and how it changes, the weight of it changes, softens, solidifies.

`Do you want a moment alone?´ She asks.

`No,´ Roy answers flatly. Then holds out his hand like a child and Hawkeye catches him. He seems to be thinking about it as he watches their fingers entwined, a sight both everyday and precious. `I don't want to be alone, no. Not now, not... How do I put this? Not _ever_.´

`Is that a proposition?´

`I believe it is.´

She breathes out softly and runs her hand through his hair. Is that an answer? Possibly. The question couldn't wait until tomorrow but the answer can. Or maybe he should say something else but then the door to his office creaks open (coincidence, good or bad timing?) and Hawkeye takes a couple of steps back from him. She is very professional about it. Superfluous (it's not like anyone here is going to mind) but endearing. Roy worries that his hair looks silly, that it looks so obviously caressed-by-a-lover. Not a look the future president wants to have on election night.

Everyone comes in. Havoc, Breda, Falman, Fuery. They join Hawkeye, standing in a very formal line in front of Roy. There's a peculiar mood now – not like they have done this before (they have; maybe not this office, maybe not a general election, but this, _this thing_ they do, yes, they've been here before) but rather like they are owning up to their history. Tonight is many things (a possibility, a wager, a reward, the end of hard work and the beginning of harder work, something to do with the way of how these people use the word `hope´ and it doesn't sound trite or old) but there's also something of a celebration to it. Their formality is not cold but proud.

`Well, this is it, uh?´ Roy says and it sounds like a prologue.

`You are not going to make a sentimental speech, are you, sir?´ Breda asks.

`He is,´ Hawkeye says like a warning.

Roy looks hurt.

`You, people, have no soul.´

He sighs and goes around to his desk. He opens a drawer. He takes out a rectangular wooden box. Hawkeye recognizes instantly what it is. Roy holds it in his hand for a moment, as if wondering what to do with it. As if wondering whether he should do it, whatever he seems to have in mind. He looks at his subordinates and shakes his head.

`I was going to make a _very touching_ speech about how it doesn't matter whether we win or lose the election tonight, what matters is that we've made it this far and will go on, and about how I could not have made it without all and any of you and how invaluable you are to me. I had it all written down. It was a very eloquent speech, you would have cried. Was. But now I see you don't deserve it,´ he moans. He puts the box on the desk, in front of him. `You do, however, deserve this.´

He opens the chess set.

They all look at each other expectantly. Then they all look at Hawkeye. She shrugs.

Roy starts handing out the pieces. One piece to each of them. One by one – first Havoc, ushered by the others, Breda elbowing discreetly, then the rest. Roy makes them offer their palms like children waiting for candy.

`I'm a Knight?´ Havoc says, sounding delighted.

Falman and Fuery look at each other questioningly, they both got Rook pieces.

Breda is examining his Bishop with a skeptic expression on his face.

`I bet I know which piece Colonel Hawkeye is getting,´ Havoc comments.

Nobody is going to argue that.

When she walks up to his desk – she is the last one – Hawkeye doesn't need to look down at the object in her hand – Roy's fingers curling into her palm as he gave it to her, warm, familiar – to know it. She makes a fist around it, closes her eyes for a moment, the shape of the Queen.

Everybody else falls into a sort of embarrassed silence, and no one knows exactly how to follow that: how to follow the way Roy and Hawkeye are looking at the other right now.

Falman clears his throat and looks at the hour.

`It's time, sir.´

Breda and Havoc look at him with admiration.

`Yes,´ Roy says but it's barely a murmur. He stands up from his chair but he is still in a kind of daze. The features in his face have relaxed all of the sudden and his expression is – well, he looks like he couldn't give a damn about winning or losing the election just at this moment. It's unprofessional but he touches the palm of his hand to the small of Hawkeye's back as they all walk out of the office and lead downstairs.

`You know, when you said you wanted to tell us something and to come up here I thought you two were finally getting married or something,´ Havoc says and laughs loudly.

Roy arches one eyebrow at Hawkeye, trying to tease a reaction, maybe even an answer. He has his answer, he knows that. It's exhilarating to pretend he doesn't. She chuckles shyly at the thousandth private joke between them.

`Your precious chess set is incomplete now,´ she comments.

She is still holding the Queen in her hand.

Roy thinks about it, the chess board left open on his desk. _Incomplete_. He wonders if that's true. Havoc, Breda, Fuery, Falman. Hawkeye. Incomplete yet not hopeless. You just need other people.


End file.
